Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 46: Poster II

CPP 46.26: Poster

Thursday, March 12, 2026, 09:30–11:30, P5

Self-assembled Micelles from Charged Block Copolymers: Insights from Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) — •Yijun Zhao¹, Varvara Chrysostomou², Athanasios Skandalis², Stefano Da Vela³, Stergios Pispas², and Christine M. Papadakis¹ — ¹TUM School of Natural Sciences, Soft Matter Physics Group, Garching, Germany — ²Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute, NHRF, Athens, Greece — ³EMBL at DESY, Hamburg, Germany

Block copolymer micelles have been widely studied due to their ability to load drugs. Positively charged micelles have been proposed to complex DNA, enabling efficient gene therapy. To achieve highly tunable morphology, self-assembled micelles from the diblock copolymers PDMAEMA-b-PLMA and the triblock terpolymers PDMAEMA-b-PLMA-b-POEGMA are investigated in aqueous solution [1]. Here, PDMAEMA stands for the weak polycation poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate), PLMA for the hydrophobic, but soft poly(lauryl methacrylate), and POEGMA for the hydrophilic poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate). Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) on dilute aqueous solutions revealed that PDMAEMA-b-PLMA forms ellipsoidal core-shell micelles, with their size and inner structure depending on temperature and the pH value. For the triblock terpolymers, the micellar structures depend strongly on the block lengths.

[1] V. Chrysostomou et al., J. Polym. Sci. 63 1684-1694 (2025).

Keywords: Charged block copolymer; Polymer Micelles; Small-Angle X-ray Scattering